


i see what she's been doing to you

by yo_let_me_get_a_milkyway



Category: Bull (TV 2016)
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Boundaries, Communication, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exes, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Men Crying, One Shot, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:36:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29558526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yo_let_me_get_a_milkyway/pseuds/yo_let_me_get_a_milkyway
Summary: Benny knows Chunk is better than Amanda. He just doesn't know if he's better than her.
Relationships: Benny Colón/Amanda Toll (past), Benny Colón/Chunk Palmer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	i see what she's been doing to you

**Author's Note:**

> man this might be so out of character but holy SHIT i needed to write this!!!! anyways lmao thank you all for reading my benjaster nonsense

The day had been long.

  
Benny was exhausted and snappy, fatigued with what the day brought him. The prosecutor's office was packed with activity, criminal rates going higher for some reason, and so they send as much possible to the in house counsels since 9 of their prosecutors got sent home with positive COVID tests. 

  
At the end of the day, all he wanted was a back rub and a person to come home to. He had that, sure, but it was... different. Different since him and Chunk finally got together, different since Chunk started staying over nights - and sometimes, days, especially on the weekend or on a day they both had off in between cases - since they all of a sudden could be at each other's beck and call. Benny was familiar with someone making him breakfast, doing all this sweet shit with him, but it's been a while since...

  
His brain helpfully supplied his thought. _Amanda, hm?_

  
Benny sighed. _Of course it was Amanda._

  
Slipping under the sheets, Benny felt himself stretch and flop down limp on the sheets, eyes tired and uneasy as his face buried into the pillow. He wish he could yell at himself, but Chunk was in the bathroom a door away, brushing his teeth and getting ready to sleep with him, so he decided against it. Chunk didn't have to know what or who he was thinking of. 

  
Facing the wall, Benny heaved the sheets towards him so that he could burrow himself in a fetal position, waiting for Chunk to slip in next to him. Tonight may have been a night where he needed to fuck, take off the edge and erase Benny's mind of all thoughts of anything. Chunk would probably be able to tell - he always could, and it really helped when he didn't feel like speaking up.

  
Finally, Chunk slipped into bed next to him, tugging at the light and letting the chain make its little shank noise. "Hey," he greeted Benny. "You look tired, darlin. 's Everything okay?"

  
"I'm all good, baby," Benny said, putting on his best voice for Chunk. "Just thinking a lot about that case we just took... about us."

  
Chunk laughed a small bit, chuckle filling the air saccharine sweet and making his blood feel warm. "I hope those thoughts are good thoughts," he followed. "Or else I'm hugging you for the entire night and not letting go."

  
Benny thought about telling him everything going on in his brain, but he decided against it. "I'll take the offer then."

  
Turning away from Chunk, he tried to let himself go to sleep before he said anything more. The thoughts clouded his brain uncomfortably, too busy in his head for a person who should really be asleep and at calm rest. Next to him, the dip in the bed caused by Chunk only proceeded to be filled by the man himself, before the pillows were fluffed in the way his boyfriend liked them and the blanket was pulled up and over his shoulder-

  
"Benny," Chunk gently shook him out of his faux sleep. "Benny, you don't wanna talk about it?"

  
Sighing, he turned over, facing Chunk and putting on a fine face. "It's nothing important," he reassured him. "I'm just lucky to have you 's all I'm thinking about, alright baby?"

  
Unfortunately, Chunk wouldn't put down the conversation topic. "I'm lucky to have you too," he told him, pulling him closer an reaching up to card a hand through his hair. "I just need to know if something's up with you so that I can help you. Even if it'll hurt me."

  
"Chunk, you know I hate lying."

  
"I know you do. That's why you look so troubled."

  
Benny sighed. Of course he knew he was upset - he practically looked like a kicked puppy. 

  
"I'm fine, that's what I told you just now," he lied (horribly) to Chunk. In an attempt to stir the conversation, Benny kissed at Chunk's neck fervently. He wasn't in too much of a sex mood, but god if it would help him avoid actually having a sincere emotion about anything except how Chunk felt next to him, hot and warm and perfect. Reaching down, he palmed Chunk through his pajama pants, feeling the ever familiar length under his hand - "Now c'mon, Chunk, we have all the time in the universe, but now I really wanna fuck you-"

  
"No," Chunk said sternly. "Benny, no."

  
And he stopped, and pulled his hands away guiltily. 

  
"Hey, Chester?"

  
"Not tonight," Chunk told him. "You're not in the right mind to get fucked."

  
"I don't care," Benny said, turning over. "If you wanna talk to me, ya gotta fuck me first."

  
Over his shoulder, he could hear Chunk suck in a frustrated breath. Truth be told, Chunk had a point - they really needed to talk - it was what they we're built on, that steady and safe Jenga tower of communication, of knowing how the other felt, and if he wasn't owning up to his side, everything would begin to fall apart. 

  
_He learned that a hard way._

  
The dip in the bed only stayed, but it moved to the edge of the bed, Chunk sitting at it and turning on the light as if to keep him up and awake for this conversation. "Benny," he started, a little bit of frustration seeping in his fragile voice. "Why won't you tell me what's going on in that head of yours?"

  
And y'know, maybe it reminded him of Amanda, because all of a sudden he had to keel over in a messy sob.

  
"Benny," Chunk quickly moved over, careful not to jostle him too much as he felt his face burn with hot wet tears. "Benny, sweetheart, what's wrong?"

  
"I'm going to fuck up," he began wetly tearing up. "I'm going to be the one who fucks up and loses you because I don't know how to handle myself like you do and I'm going to become just like Amanda-"

  
"Amanda? Benny, what brought on this?"

  
"-and you're going to hate me for being a huge jerk and only having you around for sex and shit-"

  
"Hey, hey," Chunk steadied him, sitting him up against the headboard. "Deep breaths, baby. Can you do that for me?"

  
In front of him, Benny watched Chunk close his eyes and take a deep breath, hand taking Benny's hand and rubbing it unconsciously over his knuckles. Trying to follow his breath, Benny inhaled and exhaled with a few faults seeping in and messing up his rhythm. Apparently, Chunk had seemed to follow everything that he had been saying, because then he was pulling him into a hug and rubbing his back gently and telling him things that he always had to tell Amanda.

  
Curse his brain for comparing the two of them.

  
"I'm sorry," Benny sniffled. "For making this so hard on you, for making me have to take care of you. You deserve-"

  
"I deserve you," Chunk finished for him, holding him close. "And you did nothing wrong, okay baby? Recognizing that you're at fault is better than letting it go."

  
Somehow, the words managed to help him a little, unfamiliar and comforting and reassuring to him. Untensing bit by bit, he gently allowed himself to make the comparisons in his head to him and Chunk and him and Amanda, unfamiliar reassurance seeping into his head. He was okay. He could be okay for the moment. 

  
"Benny, love," Chunk gently pushed and prodded, voice soft as if he were some kind of fragile shaky animal. "Do you wanna tell me about her?"

  
"She was just like me right now," he sniffed, taking the hand Chunk offered and holding it, Chunk letting him know he wasn't going anywhere. "She'd always tell me nothing was wrong, I don't know why, but she would never say anything about it and I would never pry..."

  
"Hey, it's okay," Chunk told him. "You're doing good, love. Keep going for me?"

  
Benny sadly smiled, curling up back into the crook of Chunk's neck. "If I did pry, she would always end up yelling at me like I was doing something bad just for trying to talk to her. And if I didn't, she'd act like I was being oblivious to whatever she was feeling... like I didn't care about her. And I did, but I just didn't know how to help her. Fancy dinners never helped because she was so busy, and back rubs and massages weren't necessarily my thing, so I was always stuck so helpless with what to do for her."

  
Almost done getting the story off his chest, he interwove his hands with Chunk's. "It was hard, wondering whatever she felt. She was so chaotic, bouncing off the walls after every case, mouth shut as if sex was far more important to her than whatever we had. And it tired me out, so much that I just had to bring it up..."

  
Chunk finished his sentence. "The divorce?"

  
"Yeah," Benny reminisced, chuckling a bit to himself. "She did not take that well."

  
In response, Chunk hummed, wrapping his arm around his waist. "I'm sorry about all of this."

  
"It's all over now, though," Benny told him. "And now I have you... handsome, perfect, heart on his sleeve, Chester Palmer. And it hasn't helped that I haven't had this kind of thing for a while, where a person actually cared about me to make breakfast and sleep next to me and be this close that it made me think of Amanda. I'm a lil scared to fuck up and ruin everything because I can't picture you being the one to stop the steady flow of what we have."

  
"I know what you mean," Chunk nodded gently, rubbing small circles into his skin. "I know I can't reassure you the most, but... somehow, I know you aren't going to do that."

  
"Whaddaya mean?"

  
Chunk smiled into the crook of his neck. "You won't be the one who cuts it off. Neither of us will be, because we're both too scared for that," he gently laughed, and Benny let out a gentle huff of amusement at the notion as well. "We're both too honest to lie to the other, and if we are, we're just going to keep pushing until we get the answer from the other... 's that okay, Benny?"

  
"More than," he said, leaning his head onto Chunk's arm. "I'm sorry about tonight, I've just been so strung up, and it just came out of me.." 

  
"And it's okay that you'll get like this from time to time. I will too... we just gotta be there for each other."

  
For some reason, Benny felt unfamiliarly happy and fulfilled that Chunk could take this so well, granted that everything in his head was so messy. His brain wouldn't stop making connections, but he could rest easy knowing they were going to be in the end. 

  
Letting Chunk take care of him, he felt the blanket go over him and Chunk gently, the man gently curling along his back and wrapping his arms around his torso in the way that made him feel safe and secure. "Thank you, Chunk," Benny quietly told him. "You know you're wonderful, hm?"

"You as well," Chunk hummed in response, breathing into the crook of his neck. "Let's get some sleep now, baby, breakfast is on me tomorrow. Let's just have an us day."

  
"That sounds great." 

  
Falling into the realm of sleep, his brain wouldn't stop buzzing with thought, but at least he could sleep knowing that Chunk was next to him, solid and steady and there for him. They'd just have to be honest. 

**Author's Note:**

> catch me crying more about these losers on tumblr @yo-let-me-get-a-milkway!!! kudos and comments appreciated!!


End file.
